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Energy savings and occupant comfort can be achieved quickly and persistently in large, complex facilities when building operators and mechanics see energy savings as part of their job and are empowered to solve building performance issues. This program, called Energy Connect, demonstrates how inherently risk-adverse and cash-strapped hospitals with the primary mandate of patient care, can adopt a culture of conservation without adding any new resources. A package of five interventions, developed using a Design Thinking approach, were tested in healthcare living labs across six diverse healthcare facilities at the second largest health network in North America. Verified first year results show annual energy savings at three facilities from 3% to 12% attributable to Energy Connect. Preliminary unverified results in the other three facilities also show energy savings.

Showing a long-term commitment to travel behaviour change, Brisbane (Australia) City Council’s Active Schools Travel program was established in 2004 and by 2018 over 157 primary schools had participated in the program. Initially developed as a road safety program, it has evolved into an active travel program to ensure there a balanced approach to reducing traffic congestion and increasing physical activity levels. It now offers weekly active travel days, special events, maps, bike and scooter skills training and public transport orientation classes for students. There are competitions and rewards to incentivise individuals, classes and whole school populations, and opportunities to identify necessary infrastructure improvements. On average, the progam has achieved a 23% increase in active travel (mostly walking trips), corresponding to a 23% reduction in car trips. Designated a Landmark Case Study in 2018.

This easily replicable pilot demonstrated how to use normative feedback and conservation tips to reduce window air-conditioning use among low- to moderate-income tenants of large multi-family buildings who do not pay their own utilities. Both the normative feedback and normative feedback combined with intrinsic priming resulted in significantly reduced electricity consumption compared to a control condition, with monthly electricity savings from 3% to 5%. There was a statistically significant persistence savings for 10 months post treatment for the normative feedback condition.

This pilot program used personal communication, norms, commitments, and prompts to engage government employees to turn off both their computers and monitors at the end of the workday. A control group was included in the evaluation design. The results revealed significant increases in computer shutdown rates in two out of the three participating agencies (the third agency had a baseline shutdown rate of nearly 90%). The most impressive findings were for computer monitor shutdown rates which nearly doubled in all three agencies.

The C-pass pilot program aims to alleviate the growing demand for parking in the downtown area by providing unlimited use of transit to employees working within downtown at no cost to themselves. The pilot provided transit passes to employees of five downtown employers during 2015-2016. The data from this pilot program was then analyzed and stakeholders within the SID decided to fund full scale implementation of this program to all 45,000 eligible workers working in the downtown area. This full scale implementation was branded Downtown C-pass, began operating on June 1st, 2018, and will stay in place until December 31st, 2020. At that point the program will be analyzed again and further funding decisions will be made.